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In 1916, Alice Paul founded the National Women’s Party to push for women’s rights.

Through hunger strikes, forced feedings, imprisonment, Paul led the fight for women’s suffrage, social and economic equality.

In 1920, the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women’s suffrage, was adopted. Three years later, Paul advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment for women.

Over the years, female leaders and feminists have broken down barriers in the workplace, education and at home, leading to better lives and independence for generations of women.

As a female millennial, I’m grateful for the advocacy and heroism of the women that came before me, making my life and dreams a whole lot easier.

I think sometimes we, as younger women, can take what we now have for granted.

Because of these women, like Alva Belmont, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Nellie Bly and countless others, I am not relegated to writing for the society pages and wedding features, for one.

Society now says I can go to college and actually use my education to start my own career rather than finding a man. I do not have to find myself a husband to support me. I can support myself.

I do not need my husband’s permission to open my own bank account. I can do it myself. I can even get my very own credit card.

I can run the Boston Marathon. I can even attend Harvard, Yale or Brown.

I can choose when I want to have children although this right, under Roe v. Wade, is increasingly undermined in some parts of the country.

I can essentially be and do what I want.

Despite these gains, however, the work is not over.

One hundred years later, women are still not fully equal with men. On this day, April 12, the nation recognizes “Equal Pay Day,” a public awareness event highlighting the gender pay gap and the amount of time it takes for women’s pay to catch up with their male counterparts or about $0.79 for every one of his dollars.

According to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the gender wage gap won’t close until 2059.

In the SouthCoast, where single mothers are the primary breadwinners of most households, the gender wage gap is a serious problem. One out of every four women in New Bedford and Fall River is living at or below the federal poverty level, and the median income for women earners is about $10,000 less than that of men across all sectors and educational levels.

In Massachusetts, however, leaders are trying to close the gap.

Today, Treasurer Deb Goldberg introduced her new website, EqualPayMA.com, dedicated to providing citizens and businesses with resources to close the gender wage gap, according to a press release.

“Wage equality is not solely a women’s issue, it’s a family issue and affects the economic health and wellbeing of our entire state,” said Treasurer Deb Goldberg in a press release “When women are paid as much as men for equal work, we all benefit. Our hope is that the launch of EqualPayMA.com will empower more people to take part in ending the gender wage gap.”

The website’s central feature is a wage equality tool kit, which employers can use as a guide to implement better pay practices and ensure pay equity. The website also features a wage gap calculator, which uses age and occupation to determine how much the gap costs over an entire lifetime.

Maybe it will help close the gap. Maybe it won’t. But it’s worth a shot.

SAN DIEGO – There are two things I love – yoga and raising awareness of the plight of the homeless.

So I was pleasantly surprised this weekend when I received an email from Andrew Beinbrink, the founder of Yoga 4 Homeless, a new grassroots charity based in San Diego.

Huh? Yoga for the homeless? How will that help? Shouldn’t their first priority be housing? Sure. Those are some of the questions I expect critics to ask.

But a simple yoga mat is merely just the beginning of giving the homeless what they need. Yoga can first help give the homeless some mental healing, health and physical wellness. Yoga has been known to reduce stress, depression and addiction, common ailments among the homeless population.

“The mission of the Yoga 4 Homeless campaign is to bring the healing power of yoga to homeless men, women, and children.Yoga has been proven to help reduce traumatic stress, depression, insomnia, drug addiction, and empower the homeless to transform their lives and get off the streets. We believe yoga should be accessible to every homeless person that wants to practice,” said Beinbrink in a press release.

Yoga 4 Homeless is starting a national awareness campaign on Tuesday in San Diego that will cover almost every major city in the U.S. in the next 45 days, Beinbrink said.

On Tuesday, the Yoga 4 Homeless social media yoga challenge will also launch. Like the ALS Ice Bucket challenge, participants will declare a donation they are making, challenge three or more friends, show off their favorite pose and post the video to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to challenge their friends and support the cause. All donations will be going to Yoga 4 Homeless through the IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign, according to Beinbrink.

The mission is to help change and transform the homeless epidemic. Right now, there are over 100 million men, women and children who are homeless across the world, the nonprofit says. In the U.S., six cities declared it a national crisis, including Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Honolulu.

It simply starts off with giving the homeless a yoga mat to sleep on at night instead of the hard concrete. While the bigger challenges are housing, education and job training, the simple act of yoga can help activate a local community into taking action for their less fortunate neighbors, Beinbrink said in an interview with Homless Voices of San Diego.

It all starts somewhere. And while there many be many solutions or policy ideas for how to address homelessness, one of the practices that hasn’t been tried is yoga. So why not?

NEW BEDFORD – Amid an overflow crowd at Monday’ s School Committee meeting, Kayla Ayers Tedeschi, a former Keith Middle School teacher, charged that staff are devalued and work within a culture of fear and violence at the school.

Tedeschi was one of at least a dozen members of the public to speak at the 3-plus hour meeting, in which city councilors, teachers and parents angrily protested at what they say is the school administration’s dismissive approach to their concerns about violence and bullying.

Speaking well past the three-minute allotted time for public comment, Tedeschi, a 7th grade science teacher at Keith from 2009 until November 2015, said she came to “give a voice to friends and former co-workers too scared to speak.”

She is one of few teachers, former or present, to give perspective on what it is like to teach inside New Bedford Public Schools. She, among other teachers and parents, called for the district to deal with troublesome students through discipline or by putting them in alternative settings.

Because her passionate speech sums of what many in the crowd argued, here’s some of it in full:

Tedeschi charged that a culture of violence has blossomed at Keith due to the “impotent and absent administration.” When students have thrown desks and books at teachers, calling them “f*ing N- words!, she said, they were returned to class. And many students, she said, are terrified to report other students bringing guns into school because there is no records or reports to authorities.

Tedeschi said staff are “so devalued” that when a new teacher was sexually harassed by a student, who told the teacher ‘close your legs, it smells like fish’ and then elbowed the teacher in the crotch, the administrator told the teacher that they would have to learn to deal with the student because they were coming right back.”

In a speech that attracted resounding applause, Tedeschi said she tendered her resignation on Oct. 22, 2015. She said she left due to the “unsafe climate for staff and students caused by ineffective and dangerous practices used by the new administration” and “being asked to lie to parents about the safety of their children in my dangerously overcrowded lab.”

“I understand that it was reported that I went to a suburban district. In truth, I am working in an urban middle school in Fall River that Ms. Elmsley (human capital services director) described as having ‘the same population of students as Keith’. I informed her that I loved my students and they had never been the problem.

The problem lies with an administration that has worked to silence and discredit the parents, teachers and students. An administration that has to have a PR person to spin their version of reality. Threats of reprisal, secrecy, and half-truths have dominated this once great district. I am here to give a voice to friends and former co-workers too scared to speak. It is time for the fear to end, the lies to stop and the secrets to come to light.”

NEW BEDFORD – Are there ongoing problems, disruptions or violence happening with students at Keith Middle School?

I’ve been hearing concerns raised by some in the community about behavior problems at Keith Middle School.

City Councilor Brian K. Gomes is also asking “immediate action be taken” at the Keith Middle School where he has heard “dozens of complaints from parents and teachers about the on-going problems with students.” He has filed a motion for tonight’s City Council meeting to request a second school resource officer be placed at the school, along with periodic walking patrols by the New Bedford Police Department Gang Squad.

Anyone with information on the issue is asked to call 508-979-4446 or email me at kmckiernan@s-t.com

NEW BEDFORD — Could serving dinner to Hayden-McFadden kids bring up their test scores?

It is an idea Superintendent Pia Durkin said she’d like to explore this week at the struggling Level 4 school as part of its turnaround.

Durkin mentioned serving supper as part of her recommendations for the school’s turnaround, released at Wednesday’s School Committee meeting.

It would be part an effort to make the school more welcoming to families and become more of a neighborhood hub. The school is also facing extended days. The state education commissioner has said the school needs to expand learning time from 990 hours to 1330 hours. That would mean longer school days possibly stretching into the suppertime.

Serving dinner to low-income students, who may not get nutritious meals at home, is a way to get them the food they need to concentrate at school. It can also address the child obesity problem in the country, providing kids with nutrients they need to eat right and stay healthy.

It’s a program that other school districts across the country are getting a taste of.

More than one million kids have received after-school dinner or snacks since the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. Under a pilot program, 13 states and Washington, D.C. began serving dinner to kids, in addition to the existing free breakfast and free/reduced lunch programs. Schools where at least half of the kids are low-income and qualify for free or reduced priced lunch are eligible.

The nation’s second largest school district, Los Angeles Unified School District, was one of the first school districts to offer after-school meals, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. The school district last year announced plans to expand the program with the goal of offering dinner at every school.

NEW BEDFORD – As Superintendent Dr. Pia Durkin released her recommendations for the Hayden-McFadden School turnaround, there was a mix of urgency, agreement and skepticism among the School Committee.

The school department is on a strict March deadline to get a turnaround plan for the struggling school to the state education commissioner for approval or else risk state takeover. The school has been labeled an “under-performing” Level 4 school by the state since 2011.

While they unanimously voted to allow Durkin to reopen contracts with the New Bedford Educators Association, the AFSCME and paraprofessional unit to make the changes to scheduling, staffing and curriculum and budget authority, the school board did ask questions about the process and how it would impact students and teachers.

“What have we learned in the past from doing this turnaround work?” asked Vice-chairperson Joshua Amaral.

Dr. Lawrence Finnerty asked if the school would resort to “sanitation” of the most difficult students, meaning sending the hard to teach kids to other schools to boost the school’s improvement.

Durkin said the school department does not even consider removing students as an option.

“We plan to serve the students of Hayden-McFadden,” she said. “We will be working with the population there.”

Chris Cotter, the frequent challenger to the school administration, asked the Durkin at what point in the school’s original turnaround plan, which is in its fourth year, did the administration drop the ball. He wanted to know why corrections weren’t made along the way before the school got this point of needing a second plan.

“Where in the past four years, has this plan not been followed up on the administration side?,” he asked. “As far as the follow through, in the past four years, where have the recommendations from the state kind of fallen through?”

Durkin said the “robustness” of the original turnaround plan “was not great enough to get the results we needed.”

Chief Academic Officer Jason DeFalco explained further that when the current administration came into place the first plan – and its autonomies that need to be negotiated- were already set in place. Essentially, few adjustments could be made because changes in staffing, curriculum and schedule had already been set in negotiations.

To resounding applause, Cotter also questioned why there is a 48.9 percent absentee rate at the school, charging that “parents need to be held accountable for getting their kids to school.”

Durkin said the answer is much deeper and the school needs to find out why a child is missing school.

“The absentee rate is atrocious and that certainly plays a part in the problem,” said Mayor Jon Mitchell, ex-officio chairman of the School Committee.

“I want to thank the staff for their input in this process which is not easy at all,” he continued. “I want to voice my confidence in Tammy Morgan (incoming principal) who has done a hell of a job at Pulaski.”

NEW BEDFORD — Peter Muise, president and CEO of First Citizens Federal Credit Union, said that while he’s seeing growth in local programs to address homelessness, he’s not seeing actual resolutions of the problem.

“It’s like the wave keeps coming,” Muise said. “We’re coming out of the worst economic collapse the country has had. Our area was harmed more than most of the state and we were slow in recovery.”

Muise represented the private sector on the Homeless Service Providers Network, a coalition of 70 agencies working to address homelessness in the city. He also served on the SouthCoast Regional Network to End Homelessness.

In his office at First Citizens, Muise told me he doesn’t believe Greater New Bedford has recovered fully from the 2008 economic recession.

“It’s a matter of underemployment. I realize there are folks just one paycheck away from a problem,” Muise said.

He said there has been a lack of sustainable job creation to spur a robust recovery. In previous recessions, Muise said, job creation was key.

Except for the Boston area, Muise said he doesn’t see much job creation happening in the SouthCoast or Cape Cod.

While Boston is seeing a boom in the high-tech and medical sectors, New Bedford is still trying to forge its own future. The city continues to hold out hope, for example, for its potential as a future hub of offshore wind energy at the Marine Commerce Terminal in the city’s South End.

But there has been economic development, albeit incremental. Since 2012, the number of people working in the city has grown by about 3,000, according to the state Office of Labor and Workforce Development.

Muise contended that people tend to blame the area’s slow growth on “a perceived low educational attainment,” but he said if there were better jobs, young people would have something to work toward.

“If we can do a better job with jobs…I think it goes hand in hand,” said Muise.

NEW BEDFORD — This week, Arlene McNamee, executive director of Catholic Social Services, suggested to me that one solution to help reduce homelessness in the region is by building tiny homes for the homeless.

The small shed-like houses for people without permanent shelter is a concept that is being used in other cities and states in the nation, including Nashville, Tenn.

McNamee said it is one area the city’s Homeless Service Providers Network could explore.

In Nashville, one local pastor is building 60-square-foot houses with no bathroom, kitchen or electricity. The 5-by-12 sheds cost $7,000 and are found in the backyard in the Green Street Church, according to Oct. 30, 2015 article in the The Atlantic.

The tiny homes may serve as a short-term solution to homelessness in many cities and towns that are struggling to provide affordable housing. It could serve as a place where people could get out of the cold, get stability and services.

“The real issue isn’t the shelter,” said Carl Alves, executive director of PAACA, this week. “It is the lack of affordable housing.”

“Homeless shelters are like emergency rooms,” he continued. ”Building more emergency rooms isn’t going to solve the underlying reason why people are accessing shelter.”

NEW BEDFORD – Portuguese elders in the city penned their first published poetry book last night at the a Casa da Saudade Library on Crapo Street.

For months, elders at the Immigrants’ Assistance Center have been compiling stories from their homeland and their journey in America. It includes poetry on daily life, lessons learned along the way and end of life issues. The poetry book is called “Recordando e Vivendo: Poemas das Nossas Vidas”

NEW BEDFORD – As the Hayden-McFadden teachers, staff and community look to turnaround the struggling Level 4 school, one question has emerged as to what happened over the last three years that left the school stagnant?

Hayden-McFadden, labeled “under-performing” by the state since 2011, is in an unusual situation. It gets to submit a second turnaround plan to the state rather than slip into Level 5 and state receivership.

Chief Academic Officer Jason DeFalco has stated that the school has one more shot to get it right and raise achievement at the North End school.

“Traditionally, when you go into Level 4, you have three years to exit,” DeFalco said on Tuesday. “The commissioner was very clear that we will have one shot to submit a turnaround plan that will hopefully embrace all of these autonomies. There is a lot riding us on getting this right.”

But some in the community are asking why didn’t the initial changes under the one-time $1.2 million School Redesign grant work in the first place?

A state policy report on turnaround practices, published in July 2014, provides some insight into why certain schools make gains and why others don’t.

There are 34 original Level 4 schools, designated in 2010, that span Boston, Springfield, Fall River, Lowell, Holyoke and more. Fourteen of the original “under-performing” schools escaped Level 4 status and 11 schools showed little to no gains as of 2014.

The state policy report hypothesizes that some of the differences between the two sets are whether schools had the right leaders in place to lead the turnaround under a microscope of urgency and whether principals had significant autonomy or control over schedules, common planning time and extended time.

Hayden-McFadden is poised to make some of the key changes the state says have been successful in other schools. For Hayden-McFadden’s second generation turnaround plan, the Local Stakeholder Group – charged with making recommendations to the Superintendent – did agree to recommend giving school administration control over curriculum, schedules and staffing. The school is also getting a new principal in Tammy Morgan, who helped raise Pulaski School from Level 3 to Level 1.

Blog Authors

Kathleen McKiernan

Kathleen McKiernan covers city politics, education, poverty and community health in the city of New Bedford.
She has covered small towns and cities in Rhode Island and western Massachusetts for four years before coming to New Bedford. She attended ... Read Full